I guess its a tiny start. In places like Italy and France there are large scale general strikes. Most Americans will probably wait until half their families are in the camps before they realise they should have done more. It will be too late by then of course.

Gavin Newsom announces that any California university that caves to Trump and signs his “loyalty pledge” will be immediately defunded. “CALIFORNIA WILL NOT BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS.”

Since it resonated with the audience, I’ll recap my main argument against AGI here. ‘General intelligence’ is like phlogiston, or the aether. It’s an outmoded scientific concept that does not refer to anything real. Any explanatory work it did can be done better by a richer scientific frame. 1/3

I think it’s also that we haven’t achieved justice and shared narrative about US history of slavery and native American genocide. The narrow triumphalism reflects a cheap attempt to cover over the injustices of the past.

Berkeley getting its 60s mojo back?

Trump Epstein Statue Back Up on National Mall

A bit more on this. The Israel/Palestine issue is so heavy. It’s a process… How do we create shared narratives that consider both triumph and injustice? The fact that the US hasn’t been able to do this re. Africans and native Americans may be part of the reason we’re allowing fascism to grow.

Let's hope we find courage in unexpected places.

Red state Republicans will suck up any amount of pain to own the libs. They'll watch their kids die of preventable diseases to own the libs.

I just spent an hour trying to get an appointment with a dentist and didn't succeed. I know it's not helpful to get so angry about stuff like this, but that's where I am today. I feel similar to two days ago trying for 3 hours to renew my car registration and not able to finish the job.

ICE growing in power is for me the scariest part of what is happening right now.

Really enjoying this conversation between J Vervaeke and J Bach. I appreciate bringing of philosophy into computer science and moving beyond facile ideas like "we are in a simulation" or fixed Cartesian mind-body dualism. Happy that Bach brings up the Glass Bead Game! www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK7u...

It's hard to act on climate change when we have a government who makes it illegal to talk about climate change and defunds all research.

Yom Kippur is a day of reflection, of forgiveness, of restoration. This year, may we all pray for a better, kinder, more peaceful future. Wishing all who observe across the five boroughs and the world a meaningful, easy fast. G’mar chatimah tovah.

like imo so-called "frontier" AI models have a theory underpinning them that goes something like "we're just gonna make a thing that's SO expensive that only we can have it and then we're gonna charge admission to use it"

and the thing is, green energy is our future! China is already outpacing us because they realize the shit works and is worth investing in! We’re being held hostage by a death cult who never moved past the racist black and white teevee shows meemaw had on the box set! It’s all so dumb!!

A report on the situation at Columbia from Peter Woit www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpr...

Your pre-Yom Kippur reminder that "globalist" is antisemitic code word & no one should be using it, least of all the federal government on its websites. bsky.app/profile/mcop...

They're bound to make their way to antisemitism sooner or later.

I'm feeling annoyed with Hoffman and this "spacetime is doomed" business. He has a lot of important stuff to offer, and his rhetoric is tempered in this conversation with Vervaeke. But this is the worst of physics supremicism. It's an attitude that only "fundamental" physics is real.

Russ Vought isn’t really a bureaucrat, he’s an anti-constitutional criminal seizing a bunch of unlawful powers to conduct economic warfare against hundreds of millions of Americans because they live in states that voted against his patron.

Russ Vought, an author of Project 2025 and director of the office of management & budget, encapsulates the MAGA mindset. He would rather not build a subway line in New York City if there’s any chance it will help minorities. This is essentially why we’ll never have universal healthcare in America.

Hey guys heads up – Republicans are repeating the same braindead lie about health care for undocumented immigrants to try and distract from their open efforts to spike your premiums.

“To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police.” - Judge William Young, September 30, 2025

Vought is doing massive damage to our country. I do hope he answers for what he has done some day.

Starting from fear isn't helpful, but we should acknowledge our fears. I'm wanting to remember a bigger picture of how society & civilation ought to be. It's just easy to lose track of that at this time. What is our positive vision, that includes dealing with climate change? I'm still not seeing it.

There's this idea out there that people are really going to wake up when they lose health care benefits, or when the economy crashes, or whatever. I sure hope so. Seeing how many people are influenced by Fox news, I fear there will never be accountability, just descent into poverty, sickness, death.

Despite the dangerous aspect to youtube with their questionable algorithm and ability to fall down rabbit holes, I still really do appreciate that we can get to know many scholars via their youtube talks. It used to be that I'd read all these books without ever seeing or hearing the author.

"But Trump’s ability to project dominance is weakening, and today’s performance didn’t help." Always helpful to hear this.

Most of the power authoritarians have is freely given. We should not comply with them in advance. Trump is far weaker than he looks. So is the GOP. We should draw them out, drain them at every opportunity, and fight for people’s wellbeing at every turn. We have been sent here to fight for people.

Quality video with encouragement for people to actually learn physics instead of getting stuck in the world of conspiracies.

I mean, is it still not obvious to most people that we're dealing with fascism here? Are people really that checked out, that they think this is business as usual in American politics?

This time I read Magister Ludi, I think about the conflict between idealism and materialism and the goal of finding a view somewhere in between. This reminds me of something I read recently connecting Hesse to Goethe.

Good to hear. It's still extremely disturbing.

This was a hard day to follow politics. I guess we hope that the military folks will maintain their integrity as the American people and the democratic party continue to fight fascism within in whatever way we know how.

Thank you for your wisdom and leadership, @aoc.bsky.social

THEY CLOSED PUBLIC POOLS RATHER THAN SWIM WITH BLACK PEOPLE YOU ARE DEALING WITH THE SAME GROUP OF PEOPLE AS THE FOLKS WHO DID THIS PLEASE WAKE THE FUCK UP

At the kiosk in Boulder now. Long line to wait in. It also doesn’t seem to be able to scan the bar code.

Not helping to make me want to engage much with Israel. What a sad, small view of Judaism these people must have.

I tried this again, and now we can’t do much with this kiosk. Reminds me of France!

I hadn't heard of Institute for Justice. ( @ij.org ) Sounds like they are doing important work right now!

I've been listening to an audiobook of H Hesse's Magister Ludi. It was published in 1943, during a time echoing the present. This book has long held an influence for me in terms of an attempt to represent what it means to be an intellectual. It does make me curious to learn more about Hesse's life.

Hopefully it won't work for this fascist administration.

New design for US Navy vessels announced

So my prediction is that after this dumb speech Trump is going to be furious bc he wants a rally response and it isn’t happening. Then he’ll look for someone to blame. So it’ll either be a bunch of random generals or maybe Hegseth? (🙏🏽)

But is there is well thought out plan here? It seems like chaos. I have to hope that they are as stupid as they appear. The Project 2025 people are not so stupid, even if they are evil.

I'm watching the final episode of Star Trek NG. It's this strange plot w/ interaction between different times. It's chaotic and not very believable. Reading about current politics, it somehow feels like an appropriate frame. It's like we've all lost the plot, and don't know where anything is going.

Hopefully people will rightly blame the fascists for the government shutdown, for decreased health care coverage and for a worsening economy.

This is important. Six steps for recording ICE in Chicago

Again let's repeat: "it would take only 4 GOP Senators, or 6 to 7 Representatives, to save the country" Fine, with filibuster/impeachment hurdles, say 30 Why is everyone in the media laser-focused on What Democrats Must Do? Stop giving those 10-30 Republicans free passes: bsky.app/profile/mcop...